WIP MMV

I'm using this to test out a bunch of things:
[MEDIA=youtube]i4HNqv7d8fs[/MEDIA]
- More hair practice
- More rigging practice
- Tried spriting over a few templates
- Experimenting with lyrics, text, placement, etc.
- Experimenting with incorporating a bit more of a story (This in particular is a more personal one, so I'm not sure how much of it I want the viewer to be able to understand just by watching this video.)
- Experimenting with effects and how much goes on at once versus how much looks good, all that jazz
- Generic film strip to illustrate a flashback
- Experimenting with a few different types of transitions
- Trying to figure out where the viewers' eyes go versus where they should be
- Trying some of this "symbolism" shit that people can do apparently
- MY HAT IS MISSING FOR THE ENTIRE THING RIP

"Here's the small crappy sprites I "made" if you're bored enough to cnc them, but they're not important"

It's a work in progress, clearly, but it's more than halfway done. I'll post the finished product on this thread eventually.
For now, what do you guys think? Especially given the above points that I'm playing around with, what would you like to see more or less of?

hair moves too much imo and you should change scenes a bit more often bc it's not too enjoyable to look at the same scene for too long o:
but overall :ok_hand:

Hey! Recent MMV from you~ 8D

I agree with Noziki -- the hair rigging is cool, but it seems a little overkill, like in the beginning and when the glass breaks on the character. I think it was used well in the second scene when she seems shocked. You could zoom in on her and really fill the screen with her face to show her expression and capture the details of her face/hair. You could also actually do more with the hair than simply swaying as well! Watch some slice of life anime for reference, like the moments when the character is like over-dramatically shocked or something? xD

Your hair rigging is really detailed -- I can't imagine how many layers it took to do it, 'cause your character's hair is so long and has a lot of strands xDD


Here looks a little awkward 'cause it's like a big block of hair that's missing. You could put something under that hair strand that moves or edit that hair strand to be longer/bigger?


That right eye sort of loses its black line outline and the white of the eye blends into the skin. On the skin layer, add a pixel or two to cover it?


The headphones sorta splice through her shoulder/arm, maybe on the keyframe when it goes down, bring it down a little more? Or you could throw it the over your shoulder and have it bounce/roll to the left -- make use of the space :DD.


I totally didn't see this until a few times after watching this. It's a cool idea, but it's very out of the way of focus and the white text blends into the light blur sky/window.

The yellow colour on that last word at the end was unreadable for me -- I had to scootch closer to my screen LOL. Maybe choose a darker shade or another colour? OR you could add shadow to your words. Whatever works for you :DD.

Regarding the custom sprites, they're pretty akai! One thing I noticed is that the third sprite (the male with the caspia hairstyle)'s legs are not shaded or edited in.

Another general CnC -- going off of what Nozoki said about changing the scenes more often, 'cause it's not too enjoyable looking at the same scene for too long, I agree with this, but if you add some camera movements (zooming in/out, panning left/right, etc), I'm sure it'll look more engaging c:

Looking forward to the final product! :DD *thumbs up*

Don't overdo the hair, you're in a house. Not on a fucking cliff. I think someone said this but, every of your rig movement is WAY too slow. They don't look smooth but forced. Don't use white text with light yellow, blue outline on white bg cuz it's really hard to see. You're gettin' better kim!



Also why is ther a fucking dolphin

Thank you all for your cnc! Most of it is stuff that I can fix in this project as well as apply in the future, which is super great. Sometimes it's hard to go back and make major changes.

Tra-La-Tracey said: (post #329475)

Hey! Recent MMV from you~ 8D

I agree with Noziki -- the hair rigging is cool, but it seems a little overkill, like in the beginning and when the glass breaks on the character. I think it was used well in the second scene when she seems shocked. You could zoom in on her and really fill the screen with her face to show her expression and capture the details of her face/hair. You could also actually do more with the hair than simply swaying as well! Watch some slice of life anime for reference, like the moments when the character is like over-dramatically shocked or something? xD

Your hair rigging is really detailed -- I can't imagine how many layers it took to do it, 'cause your character's hair is so long and has a lot of strands xDD


Here looks a little awkward 'cause it's like a big block of hair that's missing. You could put something under that hair strand that moves or edit that hair strand to be longer/bigger?


That right eye sort of loses its black line outline and the white of the eye blends into the skin. On the skin layer, add a pixel or two to cover it?


The headphones sorta splice through her shoulder/arm, maybe on the keyframe when it goes down, bring it down a little more? Or you could throw it the over your shoulder and have it bounce/roll to the left -- make use of the space :DD.


I totally didn't see this until a few times after watching this. It's a cool idea, but it's very out of the way of focus and the white text blends into the light blur sky/window.

The yellow colour on that last word at the end was unreadable for me -- I had to scootch closer to my screen LOL. Maybe choose a darker shade or another colour? OR you could add shadow to your words. Whatever works for you :DD.

Regarding the custom sprites, they're pretty akai! One thing I noticed is that the third sprite (the male with the caspia hairstyle)'s legs are not shaded or edited in.

Another general CnC -- going off of what Nozoki said about changing the scenes more often, 'cause it's not too enjoyable looking at the same scene for too long, I agree with this, but if you add some camera movements (zooming in/out, panning left/right, etc), I'm sure it'll look more engaging c:

Looking forward to the final product! :DD *thumbs up*

"Tracey you know how many layers that hair has :^)"

[MEDIA=youtube]IpUTG_zX5L8[/MEDIA]

On the bangs:
BOOM

On the eye:
Would it be better to keep the black outline and have the iris just nyooom a bit out of the eye itself?


On the clipping headset:
Conceptually, I thought this would be easy to fix. A few minutes in, I'm struggling, but I'll keep working on it. Now it goes from this: to this in a single frame LOL. I'll work on it more later :'D

On both of your text comments (the window and the yellow at the end):
Would it be better to just remove that text altogether? Especially with the yellow text at the end, I worry that having lyrics thrown in there diverts the viewer's eyes from the characters.

Thanks so much for such a big, detailed post <3 <3 <3 I really appreciate it!

NobleJuice said: (post #329477)

Don't overdo the hair, you're in a house. Not on a fucking cliff. I think someone said this but, every of your rig movement is WAY too slow. They don't look smooth but forced. Don't use white text with light yellow, blue outline on white bg cuz it's really hard to see. You're gettin' better kim!



Also why is ther a fucking dolphin

WHERE IS THERE A DOLPHIN LMAO???
Also see what I asked Tracey: Would it be better to remove the text at the last part altogether?

SuperKimxD said: (post #329485)

Thank you all for your cnc! Most of it is stuff that I can fix in this project as well as apply in the future, which is super great. Sometimes it's hard to go back and make major changes.

&quot;Tracey you know how many layers that hair has :^)&quot;

[MEDIA=youtube]IpUTG_zX5L8[/MEDIA]

On the bangs:
BOOM

On the eye:
Would it be better to keep the black outline and have the iris just nyooom a bit out of the eye itself?


On the clipping headset:
Conceptually, I thought this would be easy to fix. A few minutes in, I'm struggling, but I'll keep working on it. Now it goes from this: to this in a single frame LOL. I'll work on it more later :'D

On both of your text comments (the window and the yellow at the end):
Would it be better to just remove that text altogether? Especially with the yellow text at the end, I worry that having lyrics thrown in there diverts the viewer's eyes from the characters.

Thanks so much for such a big, detailed post <3 <3 <3 I really appreciate it!


WHERE IS THERE A DOLPHIN LMAO???
Also see what I asked Tracey: Would it be better to remove the text at the last part altogether?

Yeah it looks really forced.

SuperKimxD said: (post #329485)

On the bangs:
BOOM

On the eye:
Would it be better to keep the black outline and have the iris just nyooom a bit out of the eye itself?


On the clipping headset:
Conceptually, I thought this would be easy to fix. A few minutes in, I'm struggling, but I'll keep working on it. Now it goes from this: to this in a single frame LOL. I'll work on it more later :'D

On both of your text comments (the window and the yellow at the end):
Would it be better to just remove that text altogether? Especially with the yellow text at the end, I worry that having lyrics thrown in there diverts the viewer's eyes from the characters.

First off, AYY NICE FIX ON THE BANGS :DD

In terms of the eye movement in the beginning, it's really up to your preference -- having the eye on the top of the face or on the bottom of the face layer. Personally, I like having it on the top 'cause you keep that black outline and I think your fix just now looks fine. My only thing is my OCPD is screaming and wanting to put another black pixel on the face layer (on the right eye, top left corner), 'cause the white of the eye is sort of blending into the skin still. But it looks way better than before :DD

Don't give up on them headphones, yo! If one way doesn't work, try another way. There are unlimited ways to throw something :).

I think it would be appropriate to remove the text all together. Watching your WIP again, it looks like you don't have text consistently throughout, so a viewer wouldn't find it too awkward to see some lyrics not displayed. You should watch some random typography videos on YouTube to get some ideas, if you wanna include lyrics -- imo, they are pretty engaging.
I don't make MMVs (well, at least LOL), but having all the lyrics in text on the screen may be too much for the viewer to see. Your worry for diverting your audience's attention is good -- it means you know what you want them to focus on. From there, you should know when it's appropriate to put lyrics/text. ;)

I'm glad I could help out! Keep it up, Kim! :DD

@Tra-La-Tracey Uhhhh I'm pretty sure you make pretty amazing MMVs lol

Really nice experimentation with aesthetics Kim. Now you can take a step back and reconsider what is most important in telling your story.
Imo MMVs could do without excessive transitions aka those several dozen page turns, pushes, circular wipes, cascades, white dissolves, etc. If your music video has a story, it's much more natural and appealing to let the substance unfold without the surfaces painting over it too much. Basically, don't abuse effects for the sake of abusing effects; throw them in to move between memories and scenes maybe, but they shouldn't be going on simultaneously without purpose (i.e. the flipping of the moon while Kim is staring at it and memories sliding to the left at the same time - a cluster of information going too fast and audaciously to absorb at once).

0:10 was really beautiful, though I would suggest using the glass effect to shatter the previous memory into the moment where your character's crying. That might have been more powerful than a fast wipe and push upward transition.

Also, things like the illustration of "blurry bodies" is a bit too literal - something most of us SV animators that have done MMVs are guilty of (including me xD). A lot of SV animators make MMVs that literally visualize all the lyrics, and sometimes it looks cool and works with the song or genre. However, in this case, it's a bit distracting from whatever narrative you're trying to carry out. If you mean to convey a story, you can't have it continuously word-for-word flow with the pacing of the lyrics - most great storytelling MMVs maintain a rhythm without overextending it. I once saw a MMV that was animated brilliantly, but I could not take its content or emotional subtext seriously at all because of how literal everything was ("YOU HAVE TO ROLL THE DICE" *character jumps out of a pool and randomly throws a die on a table LMAO).

You can include the lyrics if you want tho - that's more of a stylistic preference.
Not sure how helpful some of the backgrounds and facial expressions are, especially the last one where Kim's randomly walking in white space while holding an f6 face like "WHY DAFUQ AM I FEELING ALL THESE RANDOM HANDS TUGGING AT ME, IS THIS ECSTASY!?". The white background may help with illustrating moments of isolation, but in that moment, it just seemed really random and over-symbolic (at this point, we get it...she misses them). Maybe it would be better if she was actually walking somewhere with her friends smiling and happy and holding hands, then she looks behind or stops and the environment goes from happy trees and flowers to a gloomy rainy day? Just an example lol

If you decide to revise and continue this, it would be nice to see an elaboration on why your character is sad at the loss of these memories, what is she doing now, and how is she going to move forward. Build a perspective, show the adversity (the life-changing experience, the "no-turning-back" point), and have her overcome it (or fail and miserably drown in her own emotional coma D:).

I know you asked me to CnC this a while back. Sry it took so long - hope it helps!

CCshinobi said: (post #329676)

@Tra-La-Tracey Uhhhh I'm pretty sure you make pretty amazing MMVs lol

Really nice experimentation with aesthetics Kim. Now you can take a step back and reconsider what is most important in telling your story.
Imo MMVs could do without excessive transitions aka those several dozen page turns, pushes, circular wipes, cascades, white dissolves, etc. If your music video has a story, it's much more natural and appealing to let the substance unfold without the surfaces painting over it too much. Basically, don't abuse effects for the sake of abusing effects; throw them in to move between memories and scenes maybe, but they shouldn't be going on simultaneously without purpose (i.e. the flipping of the moon while Kim is staring at it and memories sliding to the left at the same time - a cluster of information going too fast and audaciously to absorb at once).

0:10 was really beautiful, though I would suggest using the glass effect to shatter the previous memory into the moment where your character's crying. That might have been more powerful than a fast wipe and push upward transition.

Also, things like the illustration of "blurry bodies" is a bit too literal - something most of us SV animators that have done MMVs are guilty of (including me xD). A lot of SV animators make MMVs that literally visualize all the lyrics, and sometimes it looks cool and works with the song or genre. However, in this case, it's a bit distracting from whatever narrative you're trying to carry out. If you mean to convey a story, you can't have it continuously word-for-word flow with the pacing of the lyrics - most great storytelling MMVs maintain a rhythm without overextending it. I once saw a MMV that was animated brilliantly, but I could not take its content or emotional subtext seriously at all because of how literal everything was ("YOU HAVE TO ROLL THE DICE" *character jumps out of a pool and randomly throws a die on a table LMAO).

You can include the lyrics if you want tho - that's more of a stylistic preference.
Not sure how helpful some of the backgrounds and facial expressions are, especially the last one where Kim's randomly walking in white space while holding an f6 face like "WHY DAFUQ AM I FEELING ALL THESE RANDOM HANDS TUGGING AT ME, IS THIS ECSTASY!?". The white background may help with illustrating moments of isolation, but in that moment, it just seemed really random and over-symbolic (at this point, we get it...she misses them). Maybe it would be better if she was actually walking somewhere with her friends smiling and happy and holding hands, then she looks behind or stops and the environment goes from happy trees and flowers to a gloomy rainy day? Just an example lol

If you decide to revise and continue this, it would be nice to see an elaboration on why your character is sad at the loss of these memories, what is she doing now, and how is she going to move forward. Build a perspective, show the adversity (the life-changing experience, the "no-turning-back" point), and have her overcome it (or fail and miserably drown in her own emotional coma D:).

I know you asked me to CnC this a while back. Sry it took so long - hope it helps!

Woooooooo, thank you! :D Your CnC is always so great and in depth.

My understanding of your first paragraph is to choose between an abundance of effects or better storytelling, but that the two don't usually mesh together very well. Given the pacing that people seem to prefer (Others said that it seems too slow at times, or at least that's what I gathered, given that the scenes don't change enough), finding a balance between those two is going to be a real strugglebus, so I might take it one scene at a time and have some be more effect heavy and others more story heavy, rather than leaning the entire video to one side of that scale. I'll make some small tweaks to more specific parts based on your input, too.

Iiiiiiiiii have no idea how to shatter an image itself, though qq;

I am aware that a lot of SV animators tend to take lyrics too literally. I've tried to avoid that for a lot of this video, but I do really like that part (0:14), even if it doesn't make any sense. I could try to make it at least a little bit less obvious. I'll also definitely bear that in mind if I continue this.

I do think I'll remove most of the lyrics, and in order to make the first part more exciting (0:01-0:03), add some pan/crop jazz.
Many of the facial expressions are supposed to be background stuff with little mind paid to them. The only important ones that I want any viewers to pay much attention to are from 0:00 to 0:04, and at 0:10. Did the others attract too much attention? Should I neutralize them?
In the last scene, I'll add more, specifically more action to my character in the last few seconds there. My goal was for the viewers eyes to focus more on the changing characters on the right (for which purpose I'll probably remove the lyrics in that part). Did your eyes naturally end up on my character instead? The only way I can really think of (at the time being) to direct eyes even further from my character would be to blur her slightly at that point, which would probably look awkward. I really need to get better at directing viewers' eyes.

YEAH, ELABORATION WOULD BE AWESOME! I didn't really plan to show much more than emotional distress and the vague cause of that in this video, but I came across this version of the song and I might, should I get the motivation, make an MMV to that version with some new footage, some old footage, and some elaboration.

Thank you for all of your feedback, help, and advice :D